10/26/09-This Week in Science

On our first day back to school of this week, we made a chart of all of the possible causes of the sickness at Truman Middle School. This was our last step before making our lab report. Here is what I made in my notebook:

Bacteria 1. Bacteria

l l 2. Swabbed Chicken

V V 3. Present

salmonella organisms from pond water 4. What type of bacteria?

Could also be:

-Lysteria

-Camphylobacter

-Staphlyococcus

We disproved that the pond water started the outbreak.

The next day, we made a chart showing the differences between Bacteria and Humans:

Bacteria Humans

-single celled -size is larger

-smaller than humans -communicate

-respirate

-made of cells

-many cells

-different

The day after that, which was Wednesday, we went to the library. I am not positive if we went on Tuesday or Wednesday, but if we did go Tuesday, the chart above is what we did on Wednesday. (Sorry This is Kind of Hard To Follow.) Now I am having second guesses and thinking it was last Friday. Oh well, it was one of those days.

In the library, we found articles on bacteria cells and there was one about a boy that brought a water testing kit to test the water on airplanes. He found that the tap water from bathroom sicks is filthy! It informed the reader not to drink the water at all, and to ask for bottled water if we were thirsty. It has the potential to get us very sick.

On Thursday, (or whatever day, I am just so confused!) we did an experiment on cheek cells. We had to use a toothpick and rub the inside of our cheek. Then, we had to make our sample that was on the toothpick into a slide for a microscope. we had to make two slides; one with dye on it and the other with just water. We had to make pictures of what we saw and our observations on the slide with the low and high objectives. We found that the low objective and dyed cheek cell was the easiest to see. Then for homework, we had to make drawings of plant and human cells and label them.

On Friday, we did an experiment with potato and grass. We gently shaved a sliver of potato with a razor blade three times; one for a water slide, one for a Meathenine Blue dye and the other with Lugle Solution dye. With these slides we had to make two drawings for each; one with the low objective and one with the high objective. We found that the low objective Meathenine Blue was the easiest to work with.

For the grass one, we had to gently razor a tiny piece of grass and make a slide out of it. We only had to do two pictures; one with the low objective and one with the high objective. We found that the view of the grass with the low objective was the best one and the easiest to work with.

Unfortunately, I can not show everyone my pictures, but as I said above, the easiest to work with was the low objective. Above is what I have learned about this week in Science Class.